Role of the Lord Speaker

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Grocott for giving me the opportunity to articulate properly what I have been saying from a sedentary position for quite a long time now. Every time that I say it, colleagues outside say, “But we do not want to become a carbon copy of the House of Commons”, but, with respect, it is not just the Commons—or, indeed, every other legislature—which has a chair who conducts proceedings, calls speakers and keeps the meeting in order. It is not just legislatures; it is Rotary clubs, union branches, party branches and Women’s Institutes. I do not know if I have covered anything in which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is involved, but I am sure that he has been in meeting after meeting where there is someone in the chair who carries out the function of moderator, presiding officer, chair, speaker or whatever it is.

Like my noble friend Lord Grocott, with whom I agree totally, I am not proposing a revolutionary change. I should actually like the Lord Speaker to call every questioner one after the other, moving from side to side, from party to party. Probably that would not be to my personal advantage, since I have a loud voice and rather a powerful manner. However, it would be fairer.

If we cannot do that, we should, at the very least, change who resolves disputes about who the next person to be called should be, at Question Time and at Statements. We saw such disputes today at Question Time and at the Statement. As the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip, whom I have known a long time, both know, I really have the highest respect for them. My objection is not to them individually; it is that these decisions should be made not by a party-political appointee but by someone who is elected by the House.

I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, again with no disrespect to the Leader of the House, that the Leader of the House is not chosen by the House. She is chosen by the Prime Minister. So we could not get rid of her. We do not want to, but we could not. That is why we want that change.

No one has yet mentioned the Clerk. Again, with no disrespect to the Clerk of the House—we have the putative Clerk of the Parliaments here today and with no disrespect to him and to the current holder of that post—I do not know why the Clerk calls the four questioners on the Order Paper. Why does the Speaker not get up and name the person whose Question it is and call them to ask that Question? How did the Clerk get that role? Perhaps the Clerk will send me an email and let me know why it arose, but it does seem to be anomalous. I do not understand it. Nowhere else does the Clerk get up and call questioners. We should look at this.

There is also a role—I perhaps go a bit further than my noble friend on this—in relation to order in the House. When the Deputy Speaker, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, for whom I have a lot of respect, called to order a Liberal Democrat speaking from the aisle, which apparently is out of order, it was very strange that she was able to do so from the Back Benches rather than from the Speaker’s Chair. It seemed very strange. It might be more appropriate for the Lord Speaker to call for order at that time.

Non-verbal messages may be used to indicate that a speaker’s time is up. Pointing at one’s watch is one such non-verbal message. However, it would be more dignified and appropriate for the Lord Speaker to indicate that someone’s time is up and bring the House to order. By the way, I am watching the clock to note when five minutes have passed.

I would go a little further than my noble friend Lord Grocott in that I would like to see points of order introduced in this Chamber, although I do not think that will happen in the immediate future. However, there are ways of raising points of order. My noble friend the Leader of the Opposition can do it from time to time. I have found mischievous little ways of raising a point of order when we discuss the business of the House. However, it should not be just the Leader of the House and people like me, with mischievous intent, who can raise these things. There should be a proper procedure for doing that. As my noble friend Lord Grocott said, there is a danger that this could be abused, and I think it is something for the longer grass and longer consideration.

However, I hope that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will look at the other points that have been made. If she could set up just a small group—a Leader’s group—to look at those points, it would show that she understands there is concern about these issues, and that action will be taken on them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that I am going to be the odd man out, because in reviewing the role of the Speaker, I think that we should think in much broader terms than just Question Time in the House. Yes, the Speaker has a crucial role inside the Chamber, but there is a much more crucial role outside the Chamber. It has always seemed to me that this is of greater importance because we are an unelected House: we must reach out to the public so that the public understand the work and the role of this House.

When you google the Lord Speaker, yes, he is there on the parliamentary website and Wikipedia, with plenty of information about him and what he does, so that the public can learn about him, his job and responsibilities, but it needs a lot more. Already 100 of us are involved in the Lord Speaker’s “Peers in Schools” outreach scheme. We must add to this by reaching out to other places—universities and colleges, businesses, trade organisations and charities. I have rarely met a Peer who is not involved in a charity and I have always felt that an outreach scheme could both help the charities and say something about us. The Lord Speaker could maintain a public schedule of this involvement: it would be easily done on a website.

Of course, we receive Speakers and other parliamentarians from overseas, and once a year we reach out with our Chamber event for non-Members, but I think that the Lord Speaker has a particular role in outreach. It is a role that I would like to see further emphasised, to clearly enunciate our mission statement and sense of purpose. We are here to challenge the Government, to challenge the elected Chamber, to challenge proposed legislation. This is what defines us and by reaching out in this way, I think that the public will understand far better what we do and why we do it than they did through the recent BBC programmes.

Turning to the role of the Speaker inside Parliament, I agree with my noble friend Lord Grocott that his task must be to take a lead in maintaining the House’s reputation; yes, at Question Time, but also in other areas. Where I think the Speaker could intervene at Question Time might be by giving a signal when a Question or an Answer has been going on for too long, often much to the irritation of the House.

There is a case for the Speaker leading the way on modernising the House. Take dress, for example. Clerks in the other place now no longer wear wigs. Should we follow suit? Are we going to dress down? I think that this is the kind of thing on which the Lord Speaker could take the lead.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

His is not a wig.

[Lord Grocott]

It’s real.